Uprooted Palestinians are at the heart of the conflict in the M.E Palestinians uprooted by force of arms. Yet faced immense difficulties have survived, kept alive their history and culture, passed keys of family homes in occupied Palestine from one generation to the next.

Friday, 21 October 2016

US Spurns Russian Offer to Monitor November Election

[ Ed. note – Couldn’t help but laugh when I saw this story. The offer from the Russians obviously couldn’t have come at a better time. The current media uproar over Trump’s remarks about not accepting the election results (unless he wins) is only one spot on the giraffe, of course. The other awkwardness to muse upon is the US government’s history of making sanctimonious demands for Western observers to monitor elections in other countries–but of course now, with it’s own elections being seriously called into question, it refuses such an offer from Russia. ]

The US has rejected a Russian proposal to send diplomats to monitor the upcoming presidential elections and some states have even threatened to bring criminal charges against any that appear at ballot stations, Russian election officials reported Thursday.

Sources in the Central Elections Commission have told Izvestia daily that its representatives held a series of talks with the US State Department to discuss sending a delegation of monitors to US polling stations on November 8. US officials categorically rejected even the possibility of such a mission, however, instead recommending that Russia join the international mission of the OSCE’s Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR).

The request was also rejected on a state level, and in three states – Oklahoma, Louisiana, and Texas – officials used “very harsh formulas” to do so, the sources said. “In violation of all principles of democracy and international monitoring, in Texas they even threatened to hold monitors who appear at ballot stations criminally responsible,” they added.

The head of the Central Election Commission’s department for international relations, Vasily Likhachev told Interfax that the Russia could not go along with the suggestion to use ODIHR mission because participating in it would involve additional restrictions against visiting polling stations in some US states.

He also said that Russian experts planned to conduct “remote” monitoring of US polls “in spite of all the obstructions and complications” by analyzing reports from mass media and the internet, as well as other data received through open channels. The Central Elections Commission already has practice doing this, as it conducted such observations during the last US presidential election in 2012, he added.

Earlier this year, Russia sent personal invitations to US monitors asking them to observe the September parliamentary elections, and 63 accepted the offer. In total, 774 monitors from 63 nations received accreditation to observe Russia’s parliamentary elections. In addition, US representatives visited Russia earlier as part of an OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights’ monitoring mission.